281. Systems (Literally) Saved This 8-Figure Spray Foam Business - Curt Janzen & Kevin Boschee

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We've been put on this planet to do hard things, and if we're going to keep on growing as a company, next day could be harder than the day before because we're, we're opening up more opportunities for risk, um, you know, discomfort. When stuff actually happens that's really bad or catastrophic like this fire was, people are looking to the leaders to see how they're going to show up. And I really wanted to— in 10 years, we're going to talk about like, this is going to be one of those things where we're going to say, because of this, this person really showed up and they got more involved and they became a success story in our company.

You're listening to Contractor Revolution, the podcast by Breakthrough Academy, where we systemize contracting businesses for growth. Keep listening to learn how the world's top contractors scale their companies, build killer teams, and make more while working less. Kurt, Kevin, welcome to the show, guys. Thanks for coming on.

Thanks for having us.

You have been BTA members for, I wanna say, 9 years, 9 and a half, 8, something that you've been around for a little while. I remember first meeting you at the trade show booth in Calgary, Alberta. You, you want nothing to do with me and, uh, now we can't get rid of each other.

So yeah, no, you were, you were persistently Great back then, so you definitely hooked us, and we're full believers in what's going on. That's for sure.

That's good, man. I call it being lovingly persistent.

Yeah.

You've had quite a bit going on the last little while. So just to give context to everyone listening, Kurt and Kevin have been B T Mers for a very long time, have systemized and scaled quite well. I'll let them give the stats on their organization, but you guys have done phenomenally. But this year, a fire burned down half your shop, and. I really wanna get into this today because I think the real test of what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur isn't when everything's running as per normal. It's when you get tested with things like this to see how well do we still operate and how well do we show up as a team and what really ends up happening as a result of that. So you guys have an incredible story. We'll get into a whole bunch of it today, but yeah, thanks for sharing and thanks for being open to talk about this as well, 'cause I know it's still relatively fresh.

Thank you.

So yeah, let's just start a little bit. Take us back to the moment when you guys were, I think, you know, you can let me know, but you guys weren't even around when this was going on. You get this phone call, hey, the shop's on fire. Just walk us through this a little bit.

Yeah, Kurt and I were on our way out to the wonderful city of Minnesota and we had a nice layover in Winnipeg. So this was on Wednesday, March the 4th. So we're flying out there to meet with a client and land in Minnesota and we're just at the car rental lineup and my phone starts going off and I check my messages and there's 2 text messages. from my brother-in-law. The first one is, the shop is on fire. And the second one was, I called 911, fire department is on their way. And so not kind of the text that you want to kind of receive when you just kind of land in a city and you're at the start of like a 4-day business trip. So of course I call my brother-in-law and try to find out what's going on. And he says, yeah, like the shop is actively in flames. It's big. There's lots of fire trucks like there.

It's bad.

And so that was how we started our journey, you know, landing in Minnesota with our work, 4 days worth of work that we were trying to get done.

Perfect time to get away. That's crazy, man. So like, tell me on both your guys' ends, like what was going through your mind those first 10 minutes, even just when you heard all this news?

It was kind of a surreal moment. We've dealt with fire in the past. We've had a fire in one of our trucks when we first started the business, you know, a number of years ago. Kevin's mom's and dad's house burned down 20 years ago or so, a little bit past that. And so, the family's kind of been, unfortunately, privy to these type of situations in the past. And so, it brings up a little bit of PTSD, it brings up a little bit of trauma. But really, Kevin and I were both more thinking about others in that moment than ourselves or what we needed to do. It's just like, how do we kind of get this information out to the right people? How do we kind of make sure that the fire gets put out efficiently, that the fire department people are safe, that our employees are safe if they're going to head to site and help out. And so those are the things that we were thinking about immediately.

And when you go past even that, like, what was— what was— what were you guys feeling personally versus maybe just thinking about operationally? Like, was it calm? Was it just like, oh my God, what are we going to do? Is it— I don't know, you tell me. But like, what was going on emotionally in your head at the time?

It was, yeah, definitely alarming. Um, I thought about like my mom more so than even me because it was my mom's shop that we were renting 3 out of 4 bays from. And my mom luckily wasn't home at the time. She was down in Mesa with her husband for 3 months, kind of the snowbird getaway. And so I thought about her because, yeah, she was completely traumatized in a house fire back in the early 2000s. This was before we even started Beyond. And so I really wanted to take some of that trauma and that impact away. So I gathered information from Ryan, made sure I kind of knew what was going on, and then— You know, placed that call to my mom, and I was the first kind of contact that she had to kind of walk her through what was happening. I tried to like give her that news really gently and calmly and let her know that everyone was okay and that it was just stuff and that we were gonna like go through insurance and things will be okay. But I even offered to be the point of contact as far as all of the adjusters and all of the people that she would have to deal with so that she didn't have to deal with that. And that was kind of my very first thought.

Yeah, it's probably a mix of just like, how are we gonna actually get through this? And then also just like, who are the people involved and how to make sure they're all safe. The fire itself, give us context. Like, how big is this business you guys run? How many staff are in it? What did the fire destroy of that business? Like, give us some context to what happened here.

Yeah, for sure. So this is one of our 3 shops that we have use of, and we use it for Storage for a couple of our big spray foam trailers or rigs, one of our silicone roofing trailers, and had a bunch of materials and shop supplies and all that in there. And so half of it was kind of actively being used for us year round, and the other half was more kind of cold storage for some things that weren't used as much. And so, yeah, as far as the business goes, we've scaled up to about 90 people last summer, and we have multiple divisions. And in that shop there, we had a concrete lifting division, truck and a roofing division truck and trailer in there. And what actually caught fire was one of our concrete lifting trucks named Hans. It burned down. And yes, if you're not a fan of late '80s SNL, you can't be a friend of mine. The other truck that we have in the lifting division is obviously called Franz. And those are the 2 lifting trucks that we have.

So you lost Hans and you lost a lifting truck. Oh man. Okay.

Yeah, lost Hans. It felt personal. That was like our first lifting truck. So that was It was like our first child in lifting. So it was tough to see that completely burned right to the frame. It was pretty crazy.

Did aluminum burn out too? I've seen this before with fires with trucks where like the tires are gone, aluminum streaming out the side. I don't know.

Yeah.

There was still some tires and parts of engine and, you know, parts of the frame of the truck, but like the floor was all melted through, the sidewalls were all collapsed, the roof was gone. All the equipment in there was like completely destroyed.

It was toast. So what did this mean for operations? Given what had just happened?

Quite a bit. So like we had winterized Franz 'cause we only use one truck in the wintertime. And so we had to pivot and get Franz out of the winter off-season and get ready to produce 'cause we had active lifting jobs. But we had our whole roofing department, you know, was on the other side of our shop. And so it wasn't quite as impacted or destroyed, but we didn't have access to that spray foam rig, the silicone trailer, any of the products. This was a more kind of complicated insurance claim in that we had 6 different adjusters deal with this claim. And so they all wanted to have, you know, further details as to the cause and origin. And so for about a month until we got all of the people lined up to do the investigations, we had that shop fenced off with 24/7 security there so that no one would damage, you know, the evidence or to, you know, affect anything in there. So we lost access to our whole roofing side of our company as far as materials, our tools, our equipment, which greatly impacted our operations.

Yeah, and we'll get into that. And I'm curious to know too, was there any disruptions that happened that most people wouldn't expect besides the obvious of, hey, we don't have access to our stuff?

Well, I think you realize what you rely on that you just grow up to. Like, we have like hammers and nails and, you know, like the miscellaneous Plastics and, um, all the tools are end-of-roll things that we just can go and grab anytime we want. And when you don't have access to any of it and you realize you have to purchase new and then figure out what that's gonna look like with insurance, uh, it, it took a lot of thinking, uh, that's for sure.

So you guys are away, team's calling you through the phone. What did they start doing immediately without you guys even having back, having to be around? Like, this is where the story gets kind of interesting, where I think things didn't have to go as well as they did. And I think a lot of it is due to this team. So can you just describe kind of how they reacted and what happened right after that phone hung up and you guys went on to your merry way being not even in the same province, country.

Yeah, I can kind of start with that and then I'll let Kevin finish my sentence at the end. But immediately when we let our GM Ryan know what was going on, he's like, I'm heading out there. I'm in my car. I'm driving to site. And that was just a true test of the culture or the DNA of Ryan, that he was legitimately concerned about the business, the whole thing. And he wanted to make sure that he could have a positive impact on kind of of how the fire went out and helping the fire department. And he was crazy useful. You know, we needed TDS sheets or MSDS sheets. They wanted layout of the shop and what was there and what wasn't there. They wanted all this information and he was on site for as long as they needed him to make sure that they got all that information. So, you know, him just showing up and going way above and beyond what his role is in the company was kind of the biggest first thing in there. And then the next day it was kind of all the operations side, which I think Kevin could probably answer better than me.

Sure.

Yeah, go ahead, Kevin.

Yeah, I was pretty amazed when we came back from our few-day work trip that how much the crew, the team had done. They had a town hall meeting the next morning to kind of debrief the instance with all of our team, let them know what happened because it just happened that night before. They collected statements from our workers, had them all written down as far as the ones that had worked in that truck on the day that it caught fire. They created an extremely detailed list of All of the items that were lost or affected that were inside that vehicle and in that shop. They even drew out blueprints of the truck because it's now destroyed as far as where everything was to help with the investigators as far as identifying the cause and origin. They had researched already solutions as far as other equipment to repurchase as far as generators, air compressors, reactors, all that, that they had some ideas already presented to me without even being asked. Um, so yeah, they had a lot of different things that they kind of, you know, put in motion, um, without even Curt and I, you know, asking them to, to take care of.

And, and this is interesting. This is where I find it like, and kudos to your team for this because most people, their team can't even figure out how to produce a job without constantly calling them, right? Like, let alone reorganize an entire organization. Why do you think your team took on this level of initiative? Why do you think they had the ability and freedom to take on that level of problem solving? Why did it happen this way? Because it really shouldn't have in most cases.

I think it's really the trust and the faith that we put into our leadership team, going through the org structure, going through accountabilities and deliverables, giving them the freedom and the authorization to make decisions and make things happen without having to go through Kurt or I. That allows Kurt and I to do other side ventures with our business, to go and travel and to be do live a lifestyle that we kind of want to live. But we've, we have such a strong leadership team that knows their roles, their responsibilities, that they just go in and do things.

By now, many of you have probably heard of our Contractor Growth Scorecard. And if you haven't taken the quiz yet, you absolutely should. You see, this thing will take 5 minutes to do, and you're going to learn all about your biggest bottlenecks. But most importantly, you're going to get a ton of free resources to help you in those exact areas. So check it out in the description below, and I'll let you take it from there. So this is the first part of the conversation I want to get into was the more structural side. I think there's an emotional side to this that you guys did really well. I think there's a structural side. And Kevin, I know this is more your world. And just so everyone knows listening, Kevin is our structure man, and the way you prepped versus Kurt is vastly different. But it's the way you guys complement each other that I think makes such a strong team. But yeah, Kevin, on your end, like, what systems enabled your people? What were the things that really made a difference? And what would it have looked like If you didn't have any of that in place?

Yeah, I think that one of the first things that I think is really well laid out in our company is just our communication expectations and kind of the communication workflow. I didn't have to call everybody. I didn't have to, you know, put it out on any of our Slack channels that I could trust. I could make a phone call or two and that they would take that and relay that throughout our whole company and, you know, give it to the people that needed to know it so they can make decisions underneath their roles and responsibilities. What's been good is that we have a lot of All of our information as far as client information and work orders and inventory and what we need for jobs, it's all electronic. And so even though we lost a bunch of stuff, we knew what we needed to do to get jobs done and to continue the day-to-day operations to actually keep work going and to keep our guys employed and to service our clients.

Yeah. What do you think, given the problem-solving ability or authority? I don't think anywhere in your SOPs it says when the shop burns down, do this, right? Like, I think there's a certain level of we know how to continue doing things operationally. What also gives them the flexibility to be like, and I will problem solve all these really nuanced things without having to make 700 phone calls to you guys?

Yeah, I think I can answer that a little bit. And it's a little bit of what mine and Kevin's guiding principles are. And the thing that we really go back to all the time is as long as our employees are working within our core values of our company, they have a lot of freedom. And so it's like it's a box, but it's a really big box. And we let people kind of move around that box and figure out what it looks like for them and their role and their tasks that they need to get done. And then once we get that kind of aligned, great employment agreements and those type of documents that really help our team understand when they're succeeding and not succeeding. And we have some measurables. But really, when it comes to something like this that is outside of any SOP that we've ever created or we'd ever potentially want to create, They all just lived within the, how do we show up for each other? How do we show up to make Beyond look good in front of our clients? And it all comes back to our core values.

So it's like following the system within the values of how we do things versus just kind of, this is what I think is best. And when it comes to just even like the emotional side of this, like, Curt, I know you played a big role in this, but like, I can imagine people should have been freaking out a little bit. Like, is my job over? Do I not have a career anymore? I don't know if they were asking those questions, but I can imagine somebody would be if this Yeah. They didn't quit on you. They showed up. Like, maybe walk us through that a little bit. Like, how did you support them emotionally? How do they stay kind of focused when all this is going on?

For sure. And I, I, I think that it's, uh, it's very much Kevin's stable mindset, um, in it and emotional intelligence through something like this that really on the operations side really sets the tone. And he set the tone so well with, uh, like our general manager Ryan and our operations person or people manager Lisa, that it wasn't like, oh, we're going to quit.

Yeah.

And so, it wasn't really that difficult because we had already had tougher conversations. We've already gone through other situations, problems, that this was just another thing. And it's almost the same way where when I think about like, we are a multi-division company, but really what we are is we're one system that we can put a different modality into. So, whether that's raising your concrete or insulating your attic or doing some fire sprays, we kind of understand the system that it all runs through. And so just the same way we've been talking about that for a decade and a half to almost 2 decades now, our people know they can just run these problems through the same type of filter that we've done rinse and repeat in the past, and they have the answers. They're highly intelligent people, and we've just given them the freedom to make those choices in the past, and we've stood behind them and believed in them, and it became really easy when something like this happened to say, yeah, you guys got it. Go take care of it.

And Kevin, it sounds like your operations manager is reporting directly to you. Is that correct in saying that?

So that's right. Yeah.

Yeah. What is it about the way you guys communicate that allows him to take that level of ownership and autonomy without constantly having to come back to you with details?

Yeah. So our GM kind of oversees all of our, all of our divisions. Like when Curt and I are gone, that's Ryan. And we also have a people and operations manager, Lisa, who handles People and operations. And so I give both of them a lot of trust to handle everything in our company when we're not around. And so, you know, Lisa's really good at handling, you know, those conversations and the, you know, the feelings within our group from the frontline guys up to our salespeople. You know, she works through issues far better than I can most of the time that we just have a high degree of trust in what she can do. And she works through a lot of those logistical challenges, right? So we hired her. She was, you know, managed the whole Apple Store, managed like 200 people. So she's run a bigger company in a sense than Kurt and I have. But yeah, we just have some really frank conversations about, you know, our values and our beliefs. And as long as she's operating within that, we give her freedom to handle situations as they come up.

Cool. Curt, you made a video, I can't remember if it was a few weeks ago, just about the fire, and I was watching you talk about just authentic optimism. And I am curious to know, when all this goes on, I can only imagine the amount of stress you guys are under, and you still have to show up for people in a really real way, but still, like you said, projects a lot of confidence and direction. How do you do that? And what does that even look like?

Well, it comes from a belief bigger than me, first off. So, like, the faith component of my life and Kevin's life is obviously huge in that. But like, like we realized that we've been put on this planet to do hard things. And if we're going to keep on growing as a company, next day could be harder than the day before because we're opening up more opportunities for risk, you know, discomfort, whatever that is. And so, you know, when stuff actually happens that's really bad or catastrophic like this fire was, people are looking to the leaders to see how they're going to show up. And I really wanted to not brush it under the rug. I wanted to be real with them. And tell them, like, it is personal, it really sucks. And I don't like this. But I really believe that this, in 10 years, we're going to talk about, like, this is going to be one of those things where we're going to say, because of this, this person really showed up, and they got more involved, and they became a success story in our company. And I can— I already started writing the narrative of what's going to happen coming out of it by how people are going to stand up and really get through it with us. And so yeah, for me it was a mindset thing. It was, you know, relying a little bit on some emotional intelligence that, you know, Kevin and I have gained over the last 20 years of owning a business that we were able to kind of tap into that. And obviously having a business partner is awesome in these situations. Having a really good leadership team is even better than having just one person that we can lean on each other. So it wasn't just me saying, like, when I was having a real bad morning, somebody else is going to say, hey, Curt, we got this, right? And I'm like, yeah, we got it. So having those people around me, Made a difference as well.

You know, what you guys did exemplified really 2 different sides of a very important coin, which is one side is like very clear direction and like very clear understanding and confidence in where things are going to go. And then the very good and like soft understanding and like the people side of it. Is there any, any just like tips for those listening? Because I think when disaster strikes in business, everybody looks to leadership. And if leadership doesn't have that strong, clear direction, or if they are a little bit shaky in their own way, people start to worry, and the organisation starts to worry, and it starts to affect everybody down below. And it's just the key nuggets or thoughts that you could give to others saying— I just remember when COVID hit, it was like March 2020, and we were all wondering if the world was going to end.

Yeah.

And I just remember how we dealt with it internally at BTA. And I really give kudos to Igor, my business partner, who set clear direction and was very confident and really brought the team forward. And I remember just having a lot of one-on-one conversations with our team and emotionally supporting them. And it was those 2 things That really think I just like when the unknown was there for those first few months brought us together. But any lessons from you guys on that that you could bring to the audience?

I could throw out one, then I can let Kevin jump in and say something smarter than me. Um, like for me, it was that I wasn't going to hide and I was going to communicate how I was feeling. And, um, I wanted to be authentic and true to our core values of being optimistic as one, as you know, a byproduct of one of our core values. And so, So I took the stance that I'm going to tell people that this sucks, but we're going to get through it. And I wasn't going to hide in my office. I wasn't going to try and figure it out on my own. I was going to ask other people how they're doing. I was going to try and communicate more, get more curious with what's going on and how we could improve the situation instead of just either outworking it by myself or just pretending it didn't happen. So that's kind of where I went with it. How about you, Kevin?

Yeah, for me, it was definitely surrounding communication and collaboration is that, you know, we had to present some confidence and say, hey, we have insurance, we'll get through this. This is just like a really hard thing to kind of get through, but also to be collaborative and to go to different team members as we're getting information about from adjusters or about, you know, different plans and coming up with solutions. Okay, no, like we need to now store 3,600 square feet of product and vehicles somewhere. Where are we going to find that?

Right.

And we're going to have to potentially rebuild a few things. So if we could rebuild anything, what could it be? And just kind of be creative. And I found as I kind of communicated throughout this whole process, I think it's been almost 3 months now since the fire, we still don't have a shop. We still don't have a rig rebuilt. We don't have— there's still a lot of things that are up in the air that it's a long process. But as you're finding out information, communicate that. As you're trying to work through solutions, collaborate. And then if everyone has, you know, the option to contribute, then they feel like they're involved, right? And so being real through that process and asking for advice, suggestions has helped us make better decisions as we've gone along as well.

It reminds me of something that I think I've said a few times on the podcast, but just this way of thinking, which is it's not a I can or I cannot do it. thing. It's a how can I, and it's constantly asking that question until the answer becomes clear. I don't think the answer is always going to be clear, and it's just allowing yourself and the team to realize, like, it's not about what you can or can't do, it's how can you, and just being open to that question. So good job on you guys. So yeah, it's good. It's like, be super real and then just like really instill problem solving and openness with the team. So makes sense. Um, Kevin, maybe we could shift to a bit of the insurance side because this is something that, you know, you have a window into now that again, for good or for bad, you know, it's a lesson learned. Is there anything we can learn from just the insurance process you've gone through? And yeah, just what did it teach you so far, just going through this and having this level of damage happen in your organization?

Yeah, I've learned a lot over the last few months about insurance and what some words meant in our policies that I had no idea what they meant. And so I've realized that it's, it's super important to not only have a good relationship with your insurance agent, but also to really understand everything in and out of what your, your coverage entails. And so where we got Yeah. Where we got bit in the ass a little bit is that, you know, we got a really good price on a bulk order of silicone, which is one of our roofing products, at the end of last season. And so it was like cheaper than what we normally would pay for that. It was, you know, something that we could, you know, keep through the winter and start off our year. And so we stocked up and we had all of this product sitting in there that we normally wouldn't have, but that inflated our inventory values well above what our coverage has. It was the first time in like many, many, many months or years or ever that we had this level of value in there. And unfortunately, the fire happened with all of that stock in there. And so we only had coverage for $100,000 out of about $175,000 with the product because I didn't relay that information and up our insurance. And so what they call that in insurance is it's a coinsurance, which means that if you don't, you know, estimate the proper value, and they give you within like 10%, if you don't estimate the proper value, then basically we are covering whatever percentage is over that value, and they will only cover a percentage of your loss. I've kind of thought that it's a dirty word, but I also get it as far as otherwise everyone would just insure 50% or 70% and save the premium cost. But in the end, that, you know, when you do have an event like this, it doesn't save you at all. So wasn't intentional on our part, but it's something that I've definitely learned in the insurance game.

Yeah, I could also see just when you're building out your initial insurance process, just thinking through what claims you actually need and which ones you don't and trying to save on your premiums and probably being a little bit more on the opposite side of like, ah, we don't really need that. Ah, let's, let's And then this thinking, realizing after, at the end of the day, it's like, that's actually not covered. So do we want that covered or not? Because there's going to be brass tacks when it comes down to it. They're going to come look at everything. What do we actually want to have covered versus not? So.

Yeah. And there's, you know, specific items that I should have probably had on our scheduled asset list. Things like our skid steer that we use around our yard and doesn't ever go to job sites, but it's like a tangible asset that we didn't have on our schedule. Our forklift, it's like, well, it doesn't ever leave the property, but it's something that, you know, we need to have insurance for. If you add up even all of the small miscellaneous tools that you accumulate over a long period of time, that really adds up in value and cost. And so you don't think about it. It's just, you know, another saw, it's another drill, it's another this, another that. And all of a sudden you have like $50,000, $100,000, $150,000 worth of assets of tools that you need to ensure you have proper coverage for. So a lot of like really good lessons that, you know, know, we're gonna take forward. But, you know, for all the contractors out there, um, read through your policies, you know, look at, you know, try to think of the worst-case scenario. If you lost everything, what would that cost? What would be the, the replacement value? Ensure that you have coverage for up to that amount.

Yeah, and, and to bring some thoughts to this, even for me, like, I always think about insurance as like, what do I actually need versus what is nice to have? Because Some of us can self-insure, and it's like, do you want to be able to do that? Do you want to put your own money and assets on, or whatever, your own money in the bank on the line? And is that okay with you? And you'll save on the monthly premiums. But be sure that you're not stretching yourself so far that, hey, if this all goes wrong, even though we are insured, we would go under. And I think that's where there's a bit of a line. And everyone gets to decide their own risk tolerance. But I always look at insurance as it's a moneymaker, right? They're there to make money. And so their premiums versus the calculation of a fire happening is going to, you know, they're going to win long-term. When you look at all the claims and all the different people that pay them every month. But what's personal is like, hey, I still have to operate a business and I want to make sure I'm insured to the level that actually allows me to continue to operate without things going under. So, Curt and Kevin, is there anything like, I guess, learning from you now that you've had this happen? Is it like, nope, ensure everything stays insured right to the tits? Or is it like, I guess, what, how do you discern how much coverage you actually need and in what areas?

I think you want to, yeah, like you said, um, ensure that you have enough coverage to cover the things that are necessary. it to survive. Um, that, you know, maybe you don't have insurance on every last, you know, item in your business, but you need to insure the core things. The other part of my learning with this is that, you know, insurance, you know, might cover up to your, your policy limits, but you might have to pre-purchase and repurchase those items before they compensate you. It takes a lot of cash flow. It takes a lot of, you know, access to money to be able to, to do Our claim is going to be in the half a million dollar kind of a claim amount probably before it's all said and done. But you need to have several hundred thousand dollars worth of, you know, equity or, or availability on a line of credit or something to be able to make those purchases to even get reimbursed. Um, and so yeah, that would be one of my, my learning moments as well.

I've got another episode coming up on cash flow and we're going to talk a little bit about that. But I think everyone listening, if you haven't and you have money in the bank, now is a great time to go extend your line of credit. It's always easy to get money from the bank when you have money in the bank. It's always challenging when you're going through something like this and you have to say, hey, so now that we've lost all this and operationally everything's messed up, can you give us more?

Great.

That's good. Okay. Well, net-net, guys, I mean, maybe each one of you can speak to this, but what is your biggest learning from all this? What's the biggest takeaway? And what can we just speak to with the audience listening right now? What they could learn from what you've gone through?

Man, we've, well, we've learned a lot. We've learned, well, the positive side of it, we've learned that we built something that we don't have to be around every day to make sure that it's successful, even when legitimately fires happen. So, that side of it, like the emotional operational side, that's been a real positive. On the other side, it's like, how detailed do you need to be? How much do you need to dig in? And as an owner of a business, there's parts of your business that you don't care about, but are highly important to really be an expert on. And yeah, that insurance policy is definitely one of those.

Yeah, for me, I'm just super thankful for the work that Curt and I have done in the 9 years or so with BTA. I really, really value kind of the systemization and the efforts that we put in there to build up our org structure, build up our people, build up our processes so that we can enable people to make those decisions and pivot when they need to pivot and respond to unexpected crises. So thank you, BTA, because yeah, it's been really, really good to have We have everything to the part that we have it right now that, you know, Curt and I can endure something like this. Business can not only come out of this like looking quite good, but it can actually like do really, really well. It's not gonna kill our year. It's, you know, we're still on track to have a really, really good year overall.

Yeah, on that note, like what operationally are things looking like now? It's been a few months. What's on track? What are you guys still figuring out?

Yeah, I mean, we're still figuring out a few things as far as some sales that some of our divisions aren't doing as well as we want to, and we have some very specific plans, but other different parts of our company are doing exceedingly well. And, you know, we probably hired, I know, 15 people in the last month or so for some of our divisions that are ramping up. And, and, you know, we have a lot of like massive sales.

Wow.

And so, yeah, the future is really bright for Beyond overall and, and And there's always going to be some challenges and we're working through those, but I'm really happy with where we're at.

Dude, you guys just had your shops burned down. You're doing great. Give yourselves a bit more credit. Like when I look at—

go ahead, go ahead.

Yeah, it's an interesting thing because, you know, when you get really deep into your business and start understanding everything, like it highlights the things that aren't going good, but it also really puts a magnifying glass on what do you need to pull tension on and build a back And what we've realized over the last 6 months is we're no longer guessing when and where we need to put tension, when and where do we need to add extra effort, extra manpower, where do we need to pull people back out of it because of the understanding of the numbers and everything else that we have. And so, the fire is just one of the probably 12 really bad things that have happened to us in the last 6 months, whether it's people moving on, whether it is— is people demoting themselves, whether it's interpersonal dynamic things, you know, whether it's the economy and people aren't just spending money on residential improvements right now. We see those things and we're able to like just address them. And as a business owner, every one of us, we see a problem, we have to go fix it. And so the better we can understand that problem, it's easier to go in there and fix it.

And that's what we're realizing as a company is that we can scale to a bigger size, but still find those small things to fix and improve what we're trying Yeah, I think you guys have a really good combination of just like understanding of your numbers and your processes and actually knowing what the levers need to be pulled in order to rearrange those things. And actually your people understand it quite well as well. And then just having a really big heart while you do it. So it's not just about the spreadsheet, it's not just about the data that makes the decision, but like bringing a lot of passion and love to the whole thing and having your team involved in that. And I think it's a combination of those two that makes a really strong organization, really strong team. And I've seen that pattern across almost every member we work with. And there is usually a bit of a bias where like some members are high operation operators that have the best systems ever, but it's just kind of like all about just making the bottom line work. And some people are all about heart and passion and Braveheart-level leadership, but it's like everyone's lost. It's a bit of a mess. But it's when you can put those through together that I think you guys have created something truly special. Um, great organization overall. And then yeah, it's been really put to the test this year. So kudos to you guys for showing up and making it happen.

Thanks.

Good. Thanks, Paul. Thanks, yeah.

No, I think it's fairly easy when you have a good partner like Curt, who does complement me so well. And I think, you know, Curt mentioned it at the beginning of the episode that, you know, we do have a lot of our stability and our emotional intelligence is based on our relationship with God. And, you know, just to kind of like go through this whole, you know, situation from a God perspective, I think he knew everything that was gonna happen. And so we had this shellfire, we completely lost the spray foam rig, Uh, in early March. And by the end of March, you know, we were up for an award with the Spray Foam Contractor Magazine of the Year. Um, we knew that we were in, in the finalists in that, but we could have won. And we got a— we're on the front of a magazine behind me. But what came with that was a fully enclosed, ready-to-go spray foam, um, unit. It's in a trailer. It's a like brand new everything, right? And so it's almost like, you know, God was saying, you know what, you're gonna endure this hard thing and it's gonna Whatever, and you'll get through it. But I also have a solution for you that'll help out with your company and operations. And so, you know, we just wanted to give him the glory for, you know, kind of allowing us to go through something hard, but also providing us with a really good solution to it too.

He gave you a spray foam truck right when you lost one. That's pretty— and here's— and whether people have faith or not, there is something to be said about knowing how to just let go and not just try and be like, we gotta, like, we gotta white-knuckle through this. Like, you guys have a very, like, calming presence throughout, you know, all of this actually. And just in working with you over the years, And I think this is the ability to let go and be like, you know what, it's okay. There's more going on in this world than just needing to be the most successful business owner with control over everything. Let go and let things kind of work out. And so I think you guys have done a great job with that. But good. Okay, well guys, I'll let you get back to your day. Happy operating, happy hunting over the summer as you guys go get some more work and go build up the company and really good work. Thank you guys for coming on. Thank you.

Awesome. Thanks for having us.

Thanks, Danny.

Okay, see ya. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Contractor Evolution. If you've already subscribed to our podcast, consider sharing this episode with another contractor that you think needs to hear it.